Legislators of the ruling BJP are feeling the pressure as just 10 days left to achieve a target of collecting ₹25 crore from the public for the party fund

Legislators of the ruling BJP are feeling the pressure as just 10 days left to achieve a target of collecting ₹25 crore from the public for the party fund.

The BJP core committee meeting was held on Tuesday at the party headquarters to discuss a single point agenda of reviewing the progress of fund collection drive under “Ajeevan Bhavishya Nidhi”.

This exercise begun on December 25 -- the birthday of party leader and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The party has also decided to collect the donation only through cheque.

While senior party leaders are denying giving any target to the legislators, some have spilled the beans.

Deshraj Karnwal, legislator Jhabreda in Haridwar, was sulking at the meeting. He was given a target of ₹40 lakh which as per him is extremely challenging provided the limited time he has.

The first phase of the campaign of collecting the donation will conclude on January 25. Following which, donations will be submitted by February 11 -- which will be celebrated as Samarpan Diwas by the party. The core committee is likely to sit again on the same day.

“It’s certainly challenging to generate a sum of ₹40 lakh from my constituency. But we will try,” Karnwal said on the side lines of the meeting.

Karnwal is in a fix as his constituency is Scheduled Caste (SC) reserve with not enough scope to generate such a high amount of funds.

BJP state unit president Ajay Bhatt said for the past 20 days, only 20% donations were collected against the total target.

Insiders claimed that following this meeting, the pressure has mounted on legislators and ministers for generating a very high amount.

“The problem is that district party members had already approached the locals with little space left for the legislators to generate funds. Barring some topmost industrialists and businessmen, there isn’t anyone left whom legislators could approach,” a party leader said requesting anonymity.

Ministers also raised concern over the discontent amongst people due to delimitation during the meeting.

Bhatt, however, said, “The ministers enumerated that the people are dissatisfied with delimitation exercise done by the state government. But, they will soon understand how centre is financially supporting the government to intensify development works on the ground.”

He said the Centre has already released crores to all urban local bodies for development works which will connect locals with the mainstream.

BC Khanduri, former chief minister, was the only minister who could not attend the meeting on medical grounds. National joint secretary Shiv Prakash along with CM TS Rawat and all cabinet ministers, MPs and MLAs attended the meeting.